2040 Newsletter

Manufacturing partner for The Cacophony Project

Kia ora,

In this newsletter we have our new portal live, our solar battery pack available to order, tips for creating long term outcome reports, and an update on the High Interaction Rate Trap, including details of what we will be developing as part of the Tools to Market funding.

Last week I attended the Predator Free Landscape Hui in Wellington. It was great to hear from all the projects around the country. Conservation Minister, Tama Potaka launched the revised Predator Free 2050 strategy and announced $5.5m funding to make Wellington New Zealand's first predator free city by 2030. Note you can keep up with what's happening in the space by subscribing to DOC's predator free 2050 newsletter.

Earlier in March I visited Towards Predator Free Taranaki where they are trialling the DOC AI Cam, beside Hark audio and Critter Solutions' cameras. This study will look at the effectiveness of these devices in a low possum environment and compare them to current methodologies. I suspect a combination of technologies will be most effective. A DOC AI Cam detected a possum incursion during its first week, before the study began. This possum was missed by the council's older camera.

I'll be attending a Predator Free Queenstown Hui on 22 May and Fieldays 10-13 June in Hamilton. Please come and say hi if you're attending either of those. I'll have the latest version of our trap, camera and solar battery pack.

Congratulations to the Hi-tech awards finalists in this space:

• NZ Autotraps for Most Innovative Hi-Tech Solution for a More Sustainable Future, and
• Hark and Wildlife.ai for Best Hi-Tech Solution for the Public Good (the Cacophony Project won this in 2019)

Kā mihi nui,
Shaun Ryan
2040 Limited, manufacturing partner for The Cacophony Project.

Inserting a SIM Card into the DOC AI Cam with PF Taranaki rangers. This is part of the study into possum monitoring technology. Below is a video of a possum incursion captured shortly after some cameras were put in the field.

DOC AI Cam

New version of the Cacophony Portal is live

This month we released the new version of the Cacophony Portal. This is designed to be easy to use on phones and desktop, with nice visual summaries of the species found. We are still continuing to work on this and have appreciated the feedback and suggestions from our customers.

Our solar battery pack

We have settled on a design for our solar battery pack and have started manufacturing the packs for our first customers. These are available to order on our website. We are waiting for parts and won't be able to deliver any new orders until May.

We are currently running a project with final year, University of Canterbury engineering students to investigate the performance of the solar panels in low light environments, under canopy.

Creating charts

I've created a couple of guides on how to create charts from the thermal and audio recordings. These are for people who aren't overly familiar with spreadsheets. You can ask an AI to do the same thing and it might produce something useful.

Manufacturing update

We are busy catching up, following some large orders this year and are expecting to be caught up and have some stock on hand sometime in April.

The solar battery pack is now available for purchase.

High Interaction Rate Trap

The DOC tools to market funding for the high interaction rate trap aims to have the trap able to work in remote areas and catch stoats and other predators when non target species are on the ground. This work involves:

• integrating the DOC AI Cam so that you can select which animals the trap will trigger for (done)
• Remote reporting so you can see how many times the trap has triggered and what has been captured. (mostly developed, but not tested)
• The ability to remotely release non-target species that may be captured, or direct target species to a 3rd party kill trap. (mechanical design is mostly complete).
• Satellite communication integration - for locations with no cell coverage.
• Solar power - to reduce the cost of changing batteries. This includes remote reporting on battery health. (done).

In the last month we have completed the design of the electromagnetic release mechanism which responds more quickly than the previous design (see video below). We have started field testing this. We've also written the code to report any triggers via the camera. We've completed some workshop based endurance testing of the trigger mechanism, successfully completing thousands of triggers.

Over the next month we intend to:

• increase the field testing
• experiment with a new sensor to reduce false triggers during the day
• introduce the ability to update the trap software remotely (via the camera)
• Work on the design of the cage with doors to release or kill a captured animal.